(PHOTO: Workers set up camp at Santiago's Rio Mapocho/Mason Bryan, The Santiago Times)Chile nears 1 month without mail service as postal worker protests continue. This week local branches of the 5 unions representing Correos de Chile voted on whether to continue their strike into a 2nd month, rejecting the union's offer. For a week the workers have set up camp on the banks of Santiago's Río Mapocho displaying banners outlining their demands; framing the issue as a division of the rich & the poor. The strike’s main slogan? “Si tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos,” it reads - if it affects 1 of us, it affects all of us. (Read more at The Santiago Times)

WHO convenes emergency talks on MERS virus

(PHOTO: Saudi men walk to the King Fahad hospital in the city of Hofuf, east of the capital Riyadh on June 16, 2013/Fayez Nureldine)The World Health Organization announced Friday it had convened emergency talks on the enigmatic, deadly MERS virus, which is striking hardest in Saudi Arabia. The move comes amid concern about the potential impact of October's Islamic hajj pilgrimage, when millions of people from around the globe will head to & from Saudi Arabia. WHO health security chief Keiji Fukuda said the MERS meeting would take place Tuesday as a telephone conference & he told reporters it was a "proactive move". The meeting could decide whether to label MERS an international health emergency, he added. The first recorded MERS death was in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia & the number of infections has ticked up, with almost 20 per month in April, May & June taking it to 79. (Read more at Xinhua)

LINKS TO OTHER STORIES

Dreams and nightmares - Chinese leaders have come to realize the country should become a great paladin of the free market & democracy & embrace them strongly, just as the West is rejecting them because it's realizing they're backfiring. This is the "Chinese Dream" - working better than the American dream. Or is it just too fanciful? By Francesco Sisci

The South: Busy at the polls - South Korea's parliamentary polls will indicate how potent a national backlash is against President Lee Myung-bak's conservatism, perceived cronyism & pro-conglomerate policies, while offering insight into December's presidential vote. Desire for change in the macho milieu of politics in Seoul can be seen in a proliferation of female candidates. By Aidan Foster-Carter

Pakistan climbs 'wind' league - Pakistan is turning to wind power to help ease its desperate shortage of energy,& the country could soon be among the world's top 20 producers. Workers & farmers, their land taken for the turbine towers, may be the last to benefit. By Zofeen Ebrahim

RUSSIA

(RUSSIAN FEDERATION)

Capital | MoscowFLAG DESCRIPTION: three equal horizontal bands of white (top), blue, and red *note: the colors may have been based on those of the Dutch flag; despite many popular interpretations, there is no official meaning assigned to the colors of the Russian flag

Population | 139,390,205 (July 2010 est.)

Area | 17,075,200 SQ KM

Official Language | Russian

Holidays | Russia Day, 12 June (1990)

Currency | Russian rubles (RUB)

Time Zone | UTC +3

Best Time to Visit | May to October

Connecting with the Culture | Experiencing imperialist extravagance at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Taking a train journey across Siberia. Learning to drink vodka the Russian way. Gazing at the clear blue waters of Lake Baikal from an old wooden cottage in lovely Listvyanka. Sweating in a banya – the combination of dry sauna, steam bath and plunges into ice-cold water is a regular feature of Russian life. Visiting Lenin’s mummified body in Red Square. Wandering the streets of Moscow to take in the variety of architecture.

Read | Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

Listen | to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff

Watch | the Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun, a poignant treatment of Stalinist purges or the 1965 film Dr. Zhivago, staring Omar Sharif and Julie Kristy about the life of a Russian doctor/poet who experiences hardships during the Bolshevik Revolution.

Surprises |St. Petersburg is a beautiful city of canals, sometimes known as the ‘Venice of the North’. It’s precisely the Russian people’s combination of gloom and high spirits, rudeness and warmth, secrecy and openness that makes the journey through their country such an extraordinary experience.

NEWS ABOUT RUSSIA

Russian parliament approves ‘web censorship’ bill

(PHOTO: RT)(HN, 7/12/12) - The Russian parliament on Wednesday voted to approve a contentious bill that activists fear will introduce Internet censorship by blacklisting sites deemed as undesirable. In a further controversial move, deputies also passed in 1st reading a bill that makes libel & slander criminal offences with punishment of up to 5 years. “The goal of the bill is to wipe out dissent in our country,” Communist deputy Anatoly Lokot exclaimed at the hearings. The 2 bills are criticised as likely to be used against the opposition & follow initiatives hiking protest fines & introducing the term “foreign agents” for NGO's with funding from abroad. The Russian-language version of Wikipedia went on strike the day earlier in protest of the bill which must be signed by President Vladimir Putin & is expected to become law in November. (Read more at the Pakistan Daily Times)

Madonna Threatened With Fine If She Violates Russia Anti-Gay Law

(PHOTO: Madonna/ConsequenceofSound) (HN, 3/22/12) - Madonna could face a fine of 5,000 rubles if she defies St. Petersburg, Russia's recently enacted gay propaganda law when she performs there this summer, warned city council member Vitaly Milonov, the bill's author. Earlier this week, Madonna stated that she would defy the ban. “I will come to St. Petersburg to speak up for the gay community & to give strength & inspiration to anyone who is or feels oppressed,” she wrote on her Facebook page. The law, which took effect earlier this month, criminalizes “public actions aimed at propaganda of pederasty, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism among minors” & effectively outlaws Gay Pride parades & gay rights demonstrations. The 5,000 rubles fine translates to roughly $170. (Read more at On top Magazine)

(AsiaTimes, 3/19/12) - Russia nudges Syria to move on - The latest United Nations Security Council statement on Syria displays unanimity of opinion over the year-long crisis. The onus on the West now is to find a way to work with Russia rather than around Russia, which is taking a lead role in pressurizing President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow will be aware Washington is giving it a rope to hang itself. By M K Bhadrakumar

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
HUMNEWS: CLOSING THE GEOGRAPHIC GAP IN MEDIA. Human Media, 2016.
All original material on HUMNEWS.COM is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
This means you are welcome to use, distribute and share our original material but we ask that you give us credit for it, don't try to make money off of it, or alter the originally-published work.
Please note: Some images and video used on HUMNEWS.COM are sourced from other individuals and organizations. In this case, you will need permission to republish them from their creators, as they may have different copyright terms.
HUMNEWS Website Header Photo Credit: NASA Visible Earth http://visibleearth.nasa.gov